1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices involved with the movement of joints, and in particular devices for monitoring and providing feedback.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Therapeutic devices have been developed for use with knee joints, as well as other joints of the human body. While therapeutic devices are extremely helpful in the rehabilitation of human limbs, it is often the case that the effectiveness of such devices is severely diminished because the user of the device fails to properly perform the necessary exercises. Unless a patient is under direct supervision of a physical therapist, many lack the discipline necessary to stay with a rehabilitation program.
Physical therapy can be very expensive, especially for chronic conditions which take hours of tedious repetitious exercise daily to properly rehabilitate. The exercise regimen can last for months or even years. It may be the case that it is very difficult for the patient to even go see a therapist, and too expensive to have a therapist come to see the patient personally.
In view of these difficulties, doctors often give a regimen of exercises for the patients to do at home. The patient, however, often fails to carry out the regimen. There may be a great deal of pain involved with the exercises, and as mentioned above, the exercises may be tedious and boring.
The patient may not always be entirely truthful to their doctor regarding the exercises performed, thus leaving the doctor with inaccurate data to treat his patient. Even if the patient does perform the exercises, the doctor has no way of ascertaining the character of the patient's exercise. Even worse, if there was monitoring equipment, much of today's equipment is so simple that the exercises could actually be faked and performed by other of the human limbs!
U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,375 to Stark et al. shows a microprocessor-controlled knee brace which is used for isometric exercise. That is, the brace does not pivot, but merely records the amount of stress exerted during the isometric exercise.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,379 to Airy et al. teaches use of a microprocessor in association with a knee brace for recording number of cycles, speed of movement and torque exerted during movement.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,939,335 to Malick discusses deactivation of a television if a device connected to the joint of a person is not properly activated.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,116,296 to Watkins et al. teaches an isometric leg rehabilitation exerciser having various sensors.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,620 to Anderson shows a continuous motion computer-controlled device.
Applegate and Young show hinge assemblies in cooperation with a knee brace.